Most stringed musical instruments do not come standard with a vibrato unit. Recently a number of vibrato units have been developed. These mechanisms are used to alter the pitch on stringed musical instruments, for example, in electric guitars. They are usually mounted on solid body electric guitars by anchoring them into the guitar to allow the user to vary the pitch by depressing the vibrato unit's arm, which lowers the pitch, and by letting the arm return to its original position, thereby raising the pitch to its original setting.
Many users opt out of using these aftermarket vibrato device units because most of significant drawbacks that the current systems have. For example, some units cause the instrument to go out of tune. Units that have tried to keep this from happening require complex systems that alter the body of the guitar, add weight and decrease the value of the guitar.
A free floating tremolo is an example of a vibrato system that has been recently developed and seeks to improve some of the current systems. Nevertheless, in this system when a string is broken, the combined load of the strings is less than the combined load in the springs, therefore, the return springs over compensate and pull the tremolo back past an equilibrium point, causing an strings to go out of tune. When this happens it is impossible to continue playing until the song is over. To continue playing, the broken string needs to be replaced. This requires retuning all of the strings and it takes a screwdriver, or Allen wrench, to release the clamp on the nut on some instruments, before the tuners can be turned to tighten or release the tension in the strings.
Another problem with the new systems is setting the intonation. This is done in most current systems by varying the distance between the bridge segments on the tremolo and the nut on the neck of the instrument. This is where the strings make contact on the instrument without being depressed. The longer the span between these points the lower the pitch, and the shorter the distance between these points the higher the pitch. The instrument can be in perfect tune when the strings are picked open, for example the little E string, but when moving up to the twelfth fret and picking the little E string it may or may not be in tune, depending on where the bridge segments have been set. This is also true for all of the other strings in their own respective keys resulting in a long time consuming job for adjustment of the intonation. This requires the use of an Allen wrench or screwdriver, and the loosening up of the string, setting the bridge segments, retuning, and checking with an electronic tuner to see if the first guess was okay. This can go on four or five times with each string.
The complications mentioned are even compounded more when a new set of strings are installed. If a string breaks while playing in a concert on fixed bridge tremolos, good players can just brush it out of the way, and improvise using the appropriate other strings until the song is over. On some mounted tremolos, breaking a string causes all the other strings to go out of tune, and improvising using the other appropriate strings until the song is over is next to impossible. It then becomes a major job to replace the string and retune the instrument.
As previously explained, many limitations and disadvantages exist with relation to these existing units. As a result, there exists a need for an improved effective Vibrato Device that is may be practically integrated in guitars and other stringed musical instruments, to effectively return the instrument to pitch, with friction stability, and that is capable of dropping one or more notes as it may be desired.